Paper Trail

My last two months have been ultra mega busy and thus my paper trail links have piled up to oblivion. To get back on the horse I'll post a few mini Paper Trails this week. Maybe I'll even post that SPX report that I should have done last month...

Latest additions to the Pikitia Press Store,  Mat Tait's Love Stories and David C Mahler's Deep Park are still searingly hot from their SPX debut's and make great Christmas presents!

Extra Ordinary recently their posted 300th strip.

Panels from Simon Hanselmann's forthcoming Life Zone from Spaceface Books. Preorder now.

Early place holder cover preview for Simon's Fantagraphics book  MEGAHEX.

Bernard Caleo documents Art Spiegelman and Francoise Mouly's visit to Melbourne's Squishface Studios.

Teaser trailer for Karl Wills' Connie Radar short film adaption Over The Moon.

Over The Moon - Teaser Trailer from Media Design School.

David Mahler writes about Evie Cahir.

Andrew Nette's Pinterest of Australian pulp novels. Love all the beautiful painted Horwitz covers.

 
Gerald Carr offers an in depth look at the case for Australian cartoonist/animator Pat Sullivan as the creator of Felix the Cat.

Jason Chatfield writes about South Australian State Labor Minister Chloe Fox's  legal threat against The Adelaide Advertiser for publishing a cartoon and a story that she claims caused “distress, stress and damage to her personal reputation”.

Support your local comic shop so they can keep running their underground bare knuckle fight clubs.

Bobby N shares a page from the second volume of The Sixsmiths, a forthcoming collaboration with Jason Franks.

Campbell Whyte wrote an impassioned plea to whoever stole his families luggage in San Francisco.

I love Blakes 7.

After nine years PulpFaction administrator Maggie McFee will be retiring the Australian comics Pulpfaction message boards in the next few days. PulpFaction was notable for many things including hosting yearly 24 hour comic competitions and I believe introducing Tom Taylor to his frequent collaborator Colin Wilson.

"It's with a heavy heart, but a heart full of good memories, that I announce the closing of Pulp Faction and the forums. The forums will be put into read-only mode in the next couple of days, so please log in and say any goodbyes while you can. The forums will remain online in a read-only state for at least the next 12 months. †"

Roger Langridge suggests 10 rules for drawing comics.

Dylan Horrocks has been posting pages every few days lately from his serial Sam Zabel and the Magic Pen.

The Norman Lindsay Gallery and Museum is one of the archival institutions currently threatened by bush fires in Australian. Australian has sadly been stricken by many natural disasters in the last several years with lives and property and likely many works of art being lost. I recall an ebay auction for an original R. Wilson McCoy Phantom daily strip being sold to raise funds for flood relief.

 Norman Lindsay

A new television series of popular New Zealand comic character Terry Teo has been funded by NZ on Air.

Pikitia Press News

This weekend Pikitia Press are proud to launch Issue #3 and #4 of Sarah Laing's Let Me Be Frank at the 2013 Auckland Zinefest. The ever prolific Sarah has gathered a selection of her Autobio comics to produce another couple themed issues, this time writing and celebrity. For folks not attending the Auckland Zinefest Sarah will be selling copies of her latest and previous issues from her blog, Let Me Be Frank and the Pikitia Press Store from next week.

In other exciting news Pikitia Press will be a Special Guest at SPX this year. We'll be taking comics from our 'ye olde floppy style' line and a few surprises to be announced next month. Three comics will debut at SPX this year, Love Stories by New Zealand cartoonist Mat Tait, Deep Park by Australian cartoonist David C. Mahler and Despair Party by Matt Emery. Big thanks to Bruce Mutard and Warren Bernard for a lot of the behind the scenes paperwork.

Mini Paper Trails

 

Mini paper trails this week 'cause I'm busy as all heck.


Profile of World War One cartoonist William Dobson.

The June/July issue of the Lifted Brow is out with a stunning cover by Ben C and featured comics by Simon Hanselmann, HTMLflowers, Katie Parrish, Noel Freibert, Leonie Brialey, Ben Juers, Lashna Tuschewski and David C Mahler. Buy a copy here.

Photos from Monsters exhibition at M2 (facebook gallery).

Jason Paulos at Monsters

Mat Tait's adaption of Wagner's The Flying Dutchman is completed and online in fourteen parts.

Ronnie Scott reviews Joshua Santospirito's and Craig San Roque's A long Weekend in Alice Springs.

Animated film, Shelved, featuring designs by Greg Broadmore, more info here.

 

Paul Tumey writes about the influence of the work Australian born English cartoonist H. M. Bateman. Tumey has just started a great column, Framed! at TCJ, started with a serialised look at early work of Jack Cole.

Roger Langridge interviewed at A Moment of Cerebus. (Hat-tip Jason Winter)

Bob Kerr has posted details and samples of his paintings of the Waihi gold strike of 1912 and a series of exhibitions in New Zealand.

John Dixon covers from the golden age of Australian comics.

 

Paper Trail masthead courtesy of Toby Morris.

Interview: Mat Tait

As part of the celebration of german composer Wagner’s bicentenary in 2013 The Goethe-Instituts around the globe have commissioned works to view the composer through the prism of the present day and age. The perspectives collected are personal, subjective, international and multimedia. New Zealand cartoonist Mat Tait has contributed a comic adaption of the opera The Flying Dutchman currently serialised in 13 or 14 parts every Tuesday at the My personal Wagner Blog. I asked Mat a few questions about this project via email.

When were you approached to take part in the My Personal Wagner project?

I was approached by Bettina Senff from the Goethe Institut towards the end of last year. From what I understand she saw my work in the NZ Comics and Graphic Novels book that Dylan Horrocks put together for the Frankfurt Book Fair.

Did you have much prior knowledge or interest in opera or Wagner specifically?

Almost none! I knew a little of Wagner's work, but probably as much as most people (I imagine), ie Ride of the Valkyries thanks to Apocalypse Now. So yeah, I was pretty ignorant.

Did you draw inspiration from anywhere in particular for your adaption? Particularly the use of large sweeping spreads with inset panels?

The inspiration for the format came mainly from the fact that the source material was intended for the stage, and it seemed to me that using large panels as analogues of stage sets or backdrops might be an interesting way to go. Also I'd been reading Chris Ware's Building Stories not long before and I think that definitely influenced me to be a little bit more formally daring than I would be usually.

Will your Flying Dutchman adaption eventually appear in paper form?

Yes; though this was commissioned as a web-based strip the intention was always to see it print at some point. I tend to envisage things in print in a kneejerk way even when doing something for the web. It's probably a fault and somewhat old-fashioned but I love print and can't help it.

Can you take us through your process for creating a page from this project?

I wrote a rough draft for the script then a more finished one before moving on to doing roughs of the page layouts and finally starting to do the finished pages, which constitute the final draft as I make a lot of changes as I go. I pencil and ink  each page onto about A2 size paper, then do the inset panels, text and any other bits and pieces separately. All of that's then scanned and put together in Photoshop. It's a good way of working for me as I'm able to play with stuff on the page and see what is and isn't working, and then make changes relatively easily.

Will we see more of your collaborations with Mike Brown on New Zealand folklore tales in the Werewolf Cartoon alley?

Yes possibly, though we're looking for print venues at the moment. I think the next story, which is almost completed, will probably be in an upcoming issue of Faction. Beyond that we're not sure, though we have some options.

Artwork © Mat Tait.

Mini Paper Trail

Mat Tait adapts Wagner's The Flying Dutchman for the Goethe-Institut New Zealand.

Mat Tait: 
It's presented a number of interesting challenges, the main one being the question of how to turn a stage production with limited settings and relatively static action into an engaging comic. I decided that rather than do a complete transformation of one form into another, I would try to play on the fact that the original material was made for the stage, and create large comics panels which would act as an analogue for stage sets through which the characters could move, interspersed with panels that work in a way more familiar to comics.
 

A light moment of Dredd from Colin Wilson.

Fikaris art on tumblr.

The Dunedin comic collective Dud are opening a comic shop.

 
Renee Liang interviews Chromacon Organiser Allan Xia. Contribute to the Chromacon Pledgeme campaign here.

Sam Orchard is drawing political cartoons for express magazine.
 

echarta interviews Lee Taylor.

Tim Gibson interviewed on The Comixologist.

Dylan Horrocks on Nga Pakiwaituhi: New Zealand Comics and Graphic Novels.

 Tim Bollinger page exhibited at Nga Pakiwaituhi

I believe the secret behind Steve Rogers prolificy creating his auto-bio comics at American Captain stems from a work ethic cultivated whilst growing up during the Great Depression.

Paul Mason on the resurrection of The Human Fly.

 Paper Trail masthead courtesy of Toby Morris.